Free Trade Coalition Supports Section 301 Exclusion Amendments to China Package

The Americans for Free Trade coalition, which would like the Section 301 tariffs removed entirely, said Congress must act to spur the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative to institute a broad exclusion process for the China tariffs. The group sent a letter to the House speaker and minority leader asking that two amendments on an exclusion process be allowed a vote, and they said they encourage members to vote for the amendments.

One of the two amendments is a '"sense of Congress" amendment, that would tell the USTR that Congress wants a broad exclusion process reopened. The other bipartisan amendment, from Reps. Stephanie Murphy, D-Fla., and Jackie Walorski, R-Ind., echoes the part of the Senate's U.S. Innovation and Competition Act that directs the USTR to reopen an exclusion process. Both the amendment and the Senate bill, however, give the USTR the ability to decline to broaden the exclusion process if she argues it would undermine U.S. leverage on China.

The coalition wrote, "We welcomed USTR’s announcement in October to open an exclusions process for a limited set of products. However, that process is only available to approximately 1 percent of the original exclusion applications and USTR has yet to announce any new exclusions from the process. To provide meaningful relief, a more robust process is needed. This view is shared by at least 141 bipartisan House members." That refers to a letter that was sent recently asking USTR to broaden the exclusion application eligibility.